In the event of a marine emergency, it is important to formulate an emergency response plan as soon as possible. Typically this will involve the mobilisation of vessels that happen to be in the vicinity of the marine emergency. The marine emergency may relate to an event at an offshore platform, such as an oil well, or another marine vessel, for example a tanker. Accordingly the marine emergency event may take many forms including, but not limited to, a subsea or surface blowout of an oil or gas well, a vessel or well leaking fuel or cargo, a vessel sinking due to a collision or a vessel propulsion failure.
In one common approach, the administrator of the structure or vessel that is experiencing an emergency may broadcast a plea for any available vessels in the vicinity to divert from their current activity and to provide assistance in responding to the emergency event. However, specific vessel capabilities may be required in order to deal with the emergency event such that some vessels may not be appropriate for dealing with the emergency event.
If it is known that a vessel or a number of vessels are en route to attend the scene of the emergency event then other appropriate vessels may decide not to provide assistance in responding to the emergency event. It may only later be discovered that the vessels that have attended the scene of the emergency event are not suitable for responding to the emergency event and thus it may be necessary to broadcast a new plea for assistance. This will have resulted in considerable delay to the resolution of the emergency event and will increase the negative impact of the emergency event, for example the operational and environmental impacts.
It has been appreciated by the present applicants that an improved system is required in order to identify suitable vessels for responding to an emergency event and to obtain their assistance.